See, the Prius turns off the engine when it comes to a stop, so there is no idling engine exhaust to check. Gah! Stupid lower-polluting vehicle! So the dude's car failed inspection.

It's very clear what the dude did wrong. He didn't spit his tabacky correctly! Or he didn't get busy with his nubile sister. Oh, we kid the backwards hillbillies from Georgia. We're sure they meant to learn to test the car that don't pollute as much. But they were busy with their sheep. We kid!

Thirdly, the Honda Fit's seats are apparently lightly upholstered marble benches. Seriously, I have never been in a car that gave me as much seat related discomfort.

This brings up a good point about test drives: How can you tell if the seat is going to bother the hell out of you?

We had tested a few Ford Focuseseses and knew immediately we could never buy the thing -- it hurt to drive. Oh, it handled well and the seats were decent, but the accelerator just didn't mesh with our leg and foot combo. Pain!

When you go to test a car, you are usually limited to a certain amount of time and, while not expressly said, miles. So how can you test a car to see if it will really work for you? How can you tell if a seat is made of "upholstered marble" if you can't take it on a five hour trip yourself?

Anyone have any tips to share?

Oh we snagged that photo but good! It's from Thenys' group of snaps. We win!

As much as I love my Civic Si, I'd love to see other companies give Honda a run for its money and revive the old sport compact market. It's really a shame that the US missed out on the Silvia S15 while also witnessing both the demise of the Celica and Integra and the bloating of the Eclipse (the Trueno getting stateside respect only recently is kinda sad too).

We think Nissan will make this. They've been focusing on the high-end for a while, but we're betting they'll return to us lower-class folk before long.

For sure 2008 will be less than 2007. And as U.S. economic woes continue (they're going to get a lot worse, watch), auto sales will continue to decline. We predict 2009 will see one million fewer cars sold than in 2007.

So Chrysler has come up with a better idea. According to news reports, it is considering stripping the Dodge name from its passenger cars and the Chrysler name from light trucks to create two distinct brands with no product overlap. Chrysler would become the car brand and Dodge the truck plan. SUVs would go to Jeep, which would also keep traditional off-road vehicles.

And so we thinks to ourselves we think, "Hey, maybe dis is a good idea. Make it all distinct-like and maybe consumers will see how it all woiks and Chrysler is for da cars and Dodge for da trucks."

But then we look at the sweet Dodge Charger and we think, we don't want to buy a Chrysler Charger. Why not make Chrysler the upscale division (like Cadillac) and Dodge the boy-racer division with some trucks on the side? We're cool with the booting of minivans to Chrysler, so they're out of the Dodge brand in our no-fail plan.

Monday, November 26, 2007

We were pretty sure, based on the images we saw of the Malibu, that it was going to be a winner. We're not 100% sure long-term, however, since we thought the Aura was going to do a lot better than it appears to be doing. Also, the previous Malibu was soooo snore-city that the '08 was surely ready for some shopper love.

Does anyone care anymore? We're not saying the Challenger isn't cool or the Camaro is lame... it's just that we've all moved on to other things now. Like hoping Bill Ford doesn't come back to Ford in a managerial capacity or Land Rover & Jaguar don't get sold to India.

What could be worse? Well, maybe if the competition was kicking arse that would be an issue. Let's just (shuffles the pages of the internets) see what we have here. Oh, crap. The Detroit Fress Press reports: Toyota reports record income.

The only way it could get worse (for us, you see) is if we read our court-delivered restraining order. There's no way Alison said that about us. And she too does like husky, bald dudes. With bad eyesight. And weak bladders.

Monday, November 05, 2007

This would have a lot more impact if the Saabs themselves didn't put us to sleep. Oh, wow, a 9-3 wagon! Man, that gets the blood pumpin'. And, look, yawn, a 2001 9-5. Or, yawn, is it a 2007? And is that a 9-7... zzzzzzzzzz.

Now Volvo... the C30 and V50 both get us pretty chubbed up. Come on, peoples, tell us the C30 isn't friggin' awesome. It is.